Jim Even thought his family had all of his father’s belongings and memorabilia after he died in 2014. His father was organized: As a U.S. Army Air Corps master sergeant and accountant, he had gotten his affairs in order before his death at the age of 92.
But unbeknownst to his loved ones, Jerome Even had put his Purple Heart medal — a heart-shaped medal given to members of the U.S. Armed Forces who are wounded or killed in combat — in a safe-deposit box. The medal eventually found its way to the Illinois State Treasurer’s Office. In May, the treasurer’s office unveiled a website listing Purple Heart medals they seek to return to honorees and their families. The website lists the names of Purple Heart recipients whose medals are with the treasurer’s office.
Soon after, Jim Even received at least a dozen calls from people telling him that his father’s Purple Heart medal was with the treasurer’s office.
“Ten years (after his death), I get a call from somebody that said, ‘Hey, are you related to Jerome Even?’” Even recounted. “And I’m like, ‘Who is this? Is this a sales call?’”
Jim Even’s siblings received similar calls, all from people who recognized their father’s name on the treasurer’s office website. The family got in touch with the treasurer’s unclaimed property team to get their father’s medal back.
On July 1, Illinois State Treasurer Michael Frerichs officially returned the Purple Heart medal to Jim Even in a ceremony at the treasurer’s office in the West Loop. The Even family is a success story in the treasurer’s mission to return Purple Heart medals to veterans and their families.
But 12 of the medals are still unclaimed and in the possession of the treasurer’s office until the recipients or their families come forward. Frerichs said that with Independence Day approaching, Operation Purple Heart is an important initiative to help veterans after their service is over.
“As we go into the Fourth of July holiday, there will be fireworks, there’ll be picnics, there’ll be fun with family and friends,” Frerichs said at a news conference Monday. “But realize that all of this came at a cost: people who fought for our independence, people who fought to maintain our independence and people who are still out there today, who may come back and need a bit of a helping hand.”
And the return process is ongoing, Frerichs made clear.
“Just because some of our wars are done doesn’t mean we do away on our obligation to help our veterans,” said Frerichs. “We still have … Purple Hearts to return, and from time to time we bring in new ones.” He encouraged the public to look at the treasurer’s office’s list of unclaimed Purple Hearts and to reach out with any relevant information.
The treasurer’s office receives the medals when they are left in banks or safe-deposit boxes and remain unclaimed for several years. The agency is required by law to make an effort to return this property. That’s where Operation Purple Heart was born.
The initiative, launched by Illinois Treasurer Michael Frerichs in November 2021, attempts to find the rightful owners of Purple Hearts in the treasurer’s office’s possession. The return of Jerome Even’s medal makes 11 Purple Hearts returned to their rightful owners. The launching of the website dedicated to returning Purple Hearts in Illinois in May 2024 marked a renewed effort to return these medals, this time seeking the public’s help. Anyone can access the list of unclaimed Purple Hearts online and attempt to find the rightful owners of these medals.
Jim Even said news of the return of the Purple Heart became an excuse to get the family together and share stories of his father’s life and legacy.
“It just reunited all these memories and kind of reunited the whole family,” Even said. “This one act created everyone talking about honoring the people who served and just bringing back memories, and it was wonderful. And it’s ongoing, because we’re still meeting with people.”
The Purple Heart medal is the nation’s oldest military honor, dating back to the Revolutionary War, according to the Department of Defense. It is estimated that more than 1.8 million Purple Hearts have been awarded since 1932.
According to his son, Jerome Even was born in the Edgewater neighborhood, and enlisted in the Armed Forces in 1940, serving in the U.S. Army Air Corps. He eventually became a master sergeant as a navigator and gunner at Pearl Harbor. He was wounded in the 1941 attack but continued to serve for five more years, receiving a Purple Heart medal on Feb. 3, 1942.
He later attended DePaul University in Chicago, became an accountant and raised five children in the Uptown neighborhood and Park Ridge. He died in April 2014 at the age of 92, Jim Even said. Because of his father’s service and love for DePaul University, Jim Even now works as a learning specialist at DePaul’s Center for Students with Disabilities, where he works with the university’s Office of Veteran Affairs, assisting veteran students with their transition to college life.
“I never had the privilege to serve as my father did,” Even said. “But I honor his sacrifice by serving veterans in a more minor, but different, way. Life comes full circle, doesn’t it?”
The treasurer’s office invited Brandon Carroll, a DePaul student and veteran liaison at DePaul’s Office of Veteran Affairs, to speak at the ceremony. He shared how, after serving in the Marine Corps and being deployed to Syria, he struggled to find community when he enrolled at DePaul University until he found the Office of Veteran Affairs.
“Mental health with veterans is very, very important nowadays,” said Carroll, describing how his shift from military service to attending college at DePaul during the COVID-19 pandemic made for a difficult — and lonely — transition. “I’m just happy that it’s being more talked about.”
Jim Even hopes that other families will get to experience what his family did when they learned they would receive their father’s Purple Heart.
“What you want to know is that someone’s gonna remember you,” Even said. “My dad would be thrilled.”